{"id":179246,"date":"2018-04-09T17:57:00","date_gmt":"2018-04-09T22:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/04\/09\/deliberately-missing-the-fing-point\/"},"modified":"2018-04-09T17:57:00","modified_gmt":"2018-04-09T22:57:00","slug":"deliberately-missing-the-fing-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2018\/04\/09\/deliberately-missing-the-fing-point\/","title":{"rendered":"Deliberately Missing the F%$#ing Point"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Times<\/i> has a story about how Republicans are using the specter of impeachment to bolster their chances of reelection in what is a difficult cycle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s an interesting narrative, but it is profoundly wrong:<\/p>\n

As Republican leaders scramble to stave off a Democratic wave or at least mitigate their party\u2019s losses in November, a strategy is emerging on the right for how to energize conservatives and drive a wedge between the anti-Trump left and moderate voters: warn that Democrats will immediately move to impeach President Trump if they capture the House.<\/span>

<\/span>What began last year as blaring political hyperbole on the right \u2014 the stuff of bold-lettered direct mail fund-raising pitches from little-known groups warning of a looming American \u201ccoup\u201d \u2014 is now steadily drifting into the main currents of the 2018 message for Republicans.<\/span>

<\/span>The appeals have become a surefire way for candidates to raise small contributions from grass-roots conservatives who are devoted to Mr. Trump, veteran Republican fund-raisers say. But party strategists also believe that floating the possibility of impeachment can also act as a sort of scared-straight motivational tool for turnout. Last week, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas used his re-election kickoff rally to introduce a video featuring a faux news anchor reading would-be headlines were conservatives not to vote in November.<\/span>

<\/span>\u201cSenate Majority Leader Schumer announced the impeachment trial of President Trump,\u201d one of the anchors says.<\/span>

<\/span>And when Representative Steve Stivers of Ohio, the chairman of the House Republican campaign organization, convened about two dozen party strategists in February for a private dinner at a French bistro here, the attendees were surprised when he addressed an issue not included in his formal PowerPoint presentation: the threat of impeachment against Mr. Trump, which he said fired up the party base.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>First, Republicans are now now, nor have the EVER<\/b> been, a small donation party.<\/p>\n

Small donors are, at best, icing on the cake.<\/p>\n

What this is about is getting Nancy Pelosi to do what she did in 2006, and panic and declare that impeachment is, “Not on the table”.<\/p>\n

The depressing thing is that it’s probably going to work.<\/p>\n

No one ever lost money going long on the cowardice of the leadership of the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Times has a story about how Republicans are using the specter of impeachment to bolster their chances of reelection in what is a difficult cycle. It’s an interesting narrative, but it is profoundly wrong: As Republican leaders scramble to stave off a Democratic wave or at least mitigate their party\u2019s losses in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[447,585,375,560,374],"class_list":["post-179246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-congress","tag-cowardice","tag-elections","tag-impeach","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179246"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}